Why Donovan Mitchell isn’t worried about Darius Garland’s injury

Cleveland Cavaliers All-Star running back Darius Garland was injured in Monday night’s game against the Miami Heat. He was forced to miss the remainder of the contest due to a left finger injury that was assessed after the game.

Cavs head coach Kenny Atkinson, who was ejected in the third quarter, had no news at his press conference. He’s not sure and can’t confirm it, but he assumes it’s the same big toe Garland had surgery this offseason.

Garland was visibly grimacing after driving to the basket, where he drew a foul from Nikola Jovic with 2:08 left in the second quarter. Sam Merrill came on for him after another minute of play as he tried to sharpen up.

“I came back here with him and said, ‘Hey, this is part of it. I’d rather this happen today than in four or five months.’ This is all part of it.” Donovan Mitchell he said after the 140-138 overtime loss. “It’s easy for me to say that too, isn’t it? It’s easy for us to sit here and say, ‘You’re going to be fine,’ and he’s not trying to hear it.

“But at the end of the day, there’s going to be downtime. There’s going to be things that happen. It’s not about him not working. I could see if he was upset because you didn’t do the necessary things, but he’s been in the gym, he’s been working on himself. There’s nothing to worry about.”

Atkinson said the medical staff consulted with the Cavs guard, who wanted to try in the second halfbut he just couldn’t go on. He intentionally rolled Andrew Wiggins midway through the third quarter and left the field and went back to the locker room.

While Cleveland’s head coach initially considered ruling him out when the initial injury occurred, he stuck with Garland.

“There were a few times he limped,” Atkinson said. “You have to give it to the player. I have good trust with Darius. He makes a lot of plays, so I kind of kept him. Maybe I should have pulled him earlier, but I trust him. We have good communication. But then it got to the point where he had to foul to stop the game, and we got him out.”

“I just hope he’s OK,” Evan Mobley said. “That’s the main thing that goes through my mind, and after that I just try to finish the game as well as we can.”

Mitchell said Garland is “fine” and in good spirits, noting that it’s early November and there’s a long way to go.

“This is all part of progress; progress is not linear,” Mitchell said. “You’re going to have days where you feel great, and you’re going to have moments like this. The biggest thing is how we can keep moving forward and stay with her, stay with our routine and not get drained. But in those moments, I know it’s hard. It sucks, man. It’s hard to see, to see all the effort he put into it.”

Garland just returned to the group last week ignite the Cavs offense. In the two games it played before Monday night, Cleveland scored 132 and 148 points.

Depending on the findings of Garland’s assessment, this could be a brutal blow to wine and gold. Cleveland is crossing its fingers for good news, as is the rest of the basketball world.

“I felt for him,” De’Andre Hunter said. “Any athlete who’s dealt with injuries knows what it’s like to go through rehab and come back and feel good, and just for a split second you go back to how you felt, it’s horrible. I just hope the best for him and I hope he’s not out for too long.”

“Whether it’s long term, short term, whatever it is, we’re going to deal with it,” Mitchell added. “And we know who we have here to help elevate who we are, while he may be out or he may not be out, I don’t know. But at the end of the day, he’s putting in the work, so he’s going to come back and be better than ever.”